


Facing the Moon

by aegistheia



Series: The Moonscale Universe [4]
Category: Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: By consequences Touya should have seen coming I actually mean consequences I should have seen coming, Gen, Mostly Gen, Names, magical theory, tags are my meta self-criticisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2587865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aegistheia/pseuds/aegistheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that magic is an undeniable constant in his life again, Touya confronts revelations that he probably should have seen coming.</p><blockquote>
  <p>Touya feels the ear-popping pull of gathering magic one breath before Yukito closes his eyes and allows himself to be encased in huge white wings.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Facing the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> **Also Archived On:** [Livejournal](http://aegiscrypt.livejournal.com/8995.html); [Dreamwidth](http://aegiscrypt.dreamwidth.org/8765.html).

Touya feels the ear-popping pull of gathering magic one breath before Yukito closes his eyes and allows himself to be encased in huge white wings. When they spread, Yue is already moving towards the stairs. “The priest’s scrying spell. It’s back.”

“Where it’d first appeared, right? Either that or in the hallway. I think.” Touya puts the washcloth down and returns Yue’s considering look with a raised eyebrow of his own. “Well, it’s not like even I can miss it if it’s doing the magical equivalent of mashing a finger on the doorbell for three minutes in a row.”

“...It would seem to be in the bedroom.”

“Think we should tell our guest he’d missed lunch?”

Touya has to smile at the way Yue manages to convey his exasperation through an unmitigated lack of expression. His own excitement is hard to explain, but Priest Yukito – a moniker more dignified than Other Yukito, or Dressy Yukito for that matter – seems like he’d be a very interesting conversationalist. It’s probably a physical law of nature for Yukito of all incarnations to be a gifted speaker. All those golden words could be a direct counterbalance for Yue’s uniquely expressive silences.

Priest Yukito’s spell had indeed manifested where he’d last shown up. Touya plants himself where he’d last been as well, feeling Yue take a more conservative place at the headboard some distance behind. “Back so soon?”

“Hello!” Priest Yukito’s cheerful greeting is followed promptly by a foreign gesture that still manages to convey some sort of remorse.

“Hello.” Touya squints. “Are you— Why are you apologizing?”

“Ah.” Priest Yukito looks embarrassed. “I hadn’t meant to intrude upon the privacy of your bedroom again. I’m still not skilled enough to anchor the scrying spell to a different location. Or to a person. I’m sorry.”

Knowing Yuki, his Priest counterpart’s already probably downplayed the extraordinary difficulty of the spell in the first place. “Not a problem,” Touya sighs, then smiles to soften the misinterpretation when Priest Yukito looks puzzled. “It’s great to see you again. I’m not due at work for another hour or so, so we have time to actually talk. I trust you’ve been able to secure your own time?”

“Oh, yes.” Watching the expressions flit through Priest Yukito’s face, Touya is reminded abruptly of that one time in high school when Akizuki Nakuru had only needed six seconds to single-handedly convince the entire class that holding only _one_ fundraiser that year, and during the school festival so as to not waste their precious time, had been a great idea. Considering that the crown jewel of the entire sordid affair was the vision of Yukito decked out in a furisode and presiding over their cross-dressing maid-cafe with a beatific regality untouched even by three near-misses with spills from classmates unused to tottering about in heels, well—

The point being. If Priest Yukito is anything at all like Yuki, he must have had the time of his life wrangling his way back into doing this again. “You worked fast. Did you miss us?”

“I rather believe that His Royal Highness misses you more. He has a message for you.” Touya barely has time to arch an eyebrow before Priest Yukito is blithely continuing, “‘I hope you’re not nearly as much of a royal asshole as I am. How’s the little monster over at yours?’”

After a delicate beat, Touya says, “He said that?”

“I may have added the embellishments he had to omit when he was dismissing me from full court,” Priest Yukito replies brightly.

Touya manages to turn a roll of his eyes into an exasperated smile. “Things really don’t change much across dimensions. You can tell His Royal Highness to grace us with his esteemed presence if he wants to see this world’s little monster and her brat for himself.” He pauses. “Feel free to, ah, embellish as well.”

“I can do that.” Priest Yukito beams. “For myself, I have questions for you! Tell me about that contraption that was on your table, the oblong—”

And before Touya quite realizes it, they’ve ripped through everything of interest in Touya’s room, and quite a few beyond. Priest Yukito proceeds to seemingly invent a way to tweak the scrying spell on the spot so that Touya and Yue can take in a broader perspective his surroundings, and that sets off another flurry of inquiries. But it isn’t until Touya finally asks about his staff that Yue sits up, wings rustling.

Priest Yukito sweeps his staff across their field of vision, one hand trailing over the sigils. “My staff is a tool for focusing my attention on the magic I am training to control and support.”

“A staff for working powers aligned with the moon,” Yue murmurs.

“Quite.” Priest Yukito smiles at Yue. “Our world has two moons, so wielding lunar magic is a little more complex than other celestial sources. Traditionally, we have a priest to support the High Priest or Priestess in managing the lunar aspect. I am the next in line for that position.”

Touya glances back despite himself; Yue’s quiet had hollowed.

“I won’t ask.” At Yue’s look, Priest Yukito clarifies, “why you— well, why you looked like that when you first saw me. We may share the same soul, but we are different people. We cannot replace each other in our respective worlds.”

At that moment, he looks so much like the Yukito Touya had grown up with that his chest aches with it.

“But we do share souls, and I daresay we share names. Names are powerful things.”

“Names give importance,” Yue says, voice uncharacteristically inaudible.

“Yes. I should have said this earlier, but— anyways. I have a message for you, too. But this is from me.” Priest Yukito leans forward, so confidentially that both Touya and Yue – well, probably Yue, but definitely Touya – copies him through sheer reflex. “In my country, at birth we are given both a public name and a secret, true name. Only our most important people are given leave to know our true names, and to use them.” He smiles, quiet, warm. “My true name is _Yue_.”

“So you see,” he continues, even as Yue freezes and Touya reels for him, “I _am_ glad, truly, to be able to meet you. It means more than I can ever express.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Yue finally manages. “We scarcely know each other.”

Priest Yukito taps his lip. “I suppose it’s because I have a responsibility.” He smiles, rueful. “I cannot see you sad and not do anything about it. And as I have been told by a very powerful Witch, there is only inevitability.”

“ _Hitsuzen_ ,” Touya says, quite involuntarily.

Priest Yukito nods as though he is answering a question. “What comes to pass is foreordained by what has passed. I like to think that for extraordinary events like these, there exist possibilities branching out from that which will affect what is to come to pass.” He makes a face. “That did not translate very well, did it?”

“I get it.” Touya lays a hand on Yue’s leg, feeling him relax. “Thank you for sharing with us.”

“The honour was mine.” Priest Yukito doesn’t look away from behind Touya for a long moment. “With that, I think it best that we retired. I expect that we each have much to think about, and that your place of employment fast awaits your presence. Next time, perhaps? When I improve my control of this spell?”

“So we should be expecting you tomorrow, then?”

Priest Yukito breathes a quick chuckle, and trains that unnervingly thoughtful look onto Touya. It is not quite unlike being pinned by a very sleepy viper. “Why don’t we work on your magic, too, then?” he says, abruptly. “Try to sense the finer details of what I do when I disconnect from your world.”

Touya grimaces despite himself. He still hasn’t gotten over how using magic feels like, and it’s been months. “I’ll try. Go on.”

When he concentrates, he can make out the edges of the scrying spell that touches the fabric of this world, a strange little twist in the threads like a needle had been poked through. When he wants to give himself a headache – which he clearly does – he can even sense the faint stitches of the translation spell lacing through their every sense like a featherweight crochet, and the way they leave a numb trace when they are withdrawn, one by one, by Priest Yukito’s careful hand.

Unravelling takes a surprisingly short amount of time, given how complex the spells undoubtedly are. Touya sighs and stretches, rubbing at his temples. “That wasn’t too bad.” The headache, that is. No unruly jackhammers taking down neighbourhoods in his head this time.

That’s about when he notices the lack of wings. When he looks over his shoulder, Yukito is smiling at him from very close. “Time to get you prepared for work, I think. Up we go, To-ya.”

 

\-----

 

The effort must have dazed him more than he’d expected, because Touya next finds himself at his job without much memory of how he’d gotten into uniform and positioned. One more thing to thank Yuki for, probably.

“Right,” he says aloud to himself, “I need energy.”

Two oddly shaped buns, a deflated Shu Cream, and a discreet half-muffin later, Touya feels much more ready to deal with the rest of the world. He rather likes this position; they’re lenient with scheduling, and don’t ask very many questions when Touya has to take a shift off due to migraines from the occasional unexpected magical flare-up. And of course there is the perk of free food.

The latter benefit is sadly not a secret. “You shouldn’t be here,” Touya says without looking.

“So?” Cerberus huffs, tucking himself into the top shelf beneath the cash register. He has somehow honed the skill of squirreling unseen through momentary gaps to a fine art. “Got anything you can’t sell?”

“It should at least give you pause.” Touya stuffs one half of a crumbled berry tart into Cerberus’s mouth, and lets him bliss out for a few minutes while he fields the fresh rush of giggling students. The owner had mentioned that business was improving steadily ever since her freshest hires had started, and even though Touya was one of them, he could tell. They almost always run out of baked goods halfway through Touya’s shifts, even with the increased production. Though, the bakers and the owner all encourage Touya to make all the malformed goods vanish by the time his shift ends. Maybe he looks underfed to them...

The stuffed animal swallows his last bite in time for Touya to cram into him the second half of the tart in between one high school student’s half-dozen and a young lady with a balloon and a bag of cookies. Keeping Cerberus still and out of sight is his current favourite stalling tactic for delaying awkward conversations; though the Guardians are tactful, several months ago Touya’d had to fend off a customer (and her indignant-looking dog plushie for good measure, which had proven to be wise when he’d then witnessed it breathing fire on her just outside the store out of the corner of his eye) who’d zeroed in on Cerberus even though the latter had been playacting as the usual stuffed toy on the counter. It is not an experience Touya is in any rush to repeat.

The high school student departs with a wave and a blush, and Touya turns his attention to the cookies being carefully placed on the counter. “Welcome.”

“These aren’t from the store,” the girl informs him solemnly, just barely tall enough to look over the counter. “These are for you, brother.”

He takes a closer look. A young lady who couldn’t be older than ten years of age, trailed by a merrily drifting balloon, dressed in fashions from before the turn of the decade. Well. “Thank you,” he says. There are no customers in earshot, or in need of immediate attention. It should be safe enough. “What’s the occasion?”

“You’re welcome.” She pushes the cookies towards him. “We wanted to thank you, and I was picked to say it.”

“Thank me for what?”

“For protecting us all last week. It was so scary!”

Touya opens his mouth, and nearly swallows his tongue when he realizes. “I’m glad,” he manages weakly. “Were there a lot of you?”

“A lot? Hmm.” She counts her fingers, then pipes, “there were about thirty of us? Me and my friends were in the park across the street when the world— when that happened.” She shivers. “You made everything stop coming apart for us. So thank you very much!”

The cookies look safe enough. Oatmeal raisin, of the homemade variety. So there are people around who can interact with at least one of the people he’d apparently protected. “It was my pleasure. My name is Touya. What’s yours?”

Five minutes later, Touya watches the girl depart with the same strange mix of adult dignity and youthful energy all children around the age of eight seem to possess. “You’re guarding me,” he says abruptly, “aren’t you. It’s why you’d been hovering around all my part-time jobs, these last few weeks.” Although he wouldn’t put it past Cerberus to have come to the bakery anyway for the pastries.

He looks down at the unexpected silence. Cerberus is watching him with a weighing expression. It looks terribly strange on his stuffed animal face, especially when it’s dotted liberally with tart crumbs. “Ever wondered why you got your magic back?” he finally says.

Touya shrugs.

Cerberus crosses his arms. “As you may know, Yue draws on the Master of the Cards’ magic as his source of power. He should have done the same with you.”

“I’d appreciate plain Japanese.”

“He should have treated you like a source of power in lieu of Sakura-chan,” Cerberus says patiently. “Magic ain’t just a thing to take or give away, you know. It has a source. Yue shouldn’t have done anything to it. I don’t think Yue _could_ have done anything to it.”

They pause for the second rush of customers, whom essentially cleans out the remainder of the store. Touya takes a moment to inform the bakers for more batches, then plants himself back behind the till to the muffled chorus of their groans. “So? What do you think happened?”

“You’ll never be as powerful as Sakura-chan,” Cereberus declares over a mouthful of collapsed crème brûlée pastry, “but then I don’t know anybody who will.” He snickers. “Who’d’ve thought you’d be the late bloomer? Hee.”

“What kind of implications does that have?”

“It depends on what you do next.” Cerberus thumps a stubby limb on Touya’s chest. How he manages to look so solemn with glass-bead eyes in body that could fit on Touya’s palm Touya will never understand. “The channels are open wide. Even I can sense it, in this form.”

Touya frowns. “What does that mean?”

Cerberus gives him a distinctly disgruntled look. “Ask Yue, man. I ain’t your magic teacher.”

“Thank the sun and stars,” Touya mutters. Thankfully no customers are in earshot when he catches the squalling stuffed animal-comet and shoves him into his bag.

 

\-----

 

Midway home, Touya stops to duck into the nearby park. It is empty of people, a small blessing. Cerberus had escaped his container a few minutes after his shift had ended and zoomed off with dire threats to report him to Sakura that Touya manifestly ignores. He’ll have to fiddle with his traps more; surely there’s a way to keep a magical being harmlessly contained for long enough to buy time for even him.

It’s just as well that Cerberus had failed his latest attempt, though. Touya likes his privacy, and this warmth is unmistakeable. “Mother,” Touya says, on impulse, “may I speak with you, if you have a moment?”

Mother shimmers into visibility with a smile. “Just a moment? Oh! How you have grown!”

It’s a futile gesture, but Touya reaches for her hands anyway. “Were you all right? When the dimensions were being ripped apart?”

Mother turns her hands and takes Touya’s in a touch that sends a shiver up his spine. He can’t remember how they’d felt like, when they’d been warm. “I was fine, my dear.”

“When I was at work, a little girl came to thank me for protecting the ghosts near my apartment when the world went insane. I didn’t feel you around when that happened, so...”

“Well, here I am!” She smiles. “Sakura is very strong, too, and your father as well.”

The sudden release in tension makes Touya’s shoulders sing. “I’m so glad,” he whispers.

Mother’s fingers tighten against his. “Touya,” she says gently, “my child. You’d done your best with what you had known. I am very proud of you.”

“But it’s not enough, isn’t it?”

“You already know your own answer, don’t you?” She looks him with soft eyes. “Where did you think I was when you called for me, Touya? That first time, on the sidewalk?”

“Beside me? I felt you.”

“No. I was much farther away, in the peach tree by the road near your father’s house.” Mother strokes his cheek, cool, present, comforting still despite the growing chill in his chest. “Remember, Touya. I will always love you. No matter what you choose to do.”

 

\-----

 

Yukito takes one look at him mid-greeting and smiles. “Welcome home. Give me a minute to finish this passage and I’ll call my other self out.”

Touya blinks, thrown.

“You do want to speak to him, don’t you?” Yukito clucks at his book. “You’re so transparent, To-ya. Natsume Soseki-sensei here would have much to say about you.”

“Natsume Soseki-sensei would have much to say about anyone and anything,” Touya retorts on automatic, shoving his bag onto a chair.

“Ah, but you’d be more inspiring.” Yukito flips his bookmark into place and claps the book shut. “Remember to handle dinner if the talk goes overlong, all right?”

“Naturally. Thank you, Yuki.”

Yukito only shakes his head, his smile a flash of blooming warmth in the arctic fan of wings. When Yue emerges, he looks so wary that Touya has to draw him close. “I just have some questions,” he murmurs into Yue’s bright hair. “That guardian partner of yours has an irritating talent for being mysterious at the worst moments.”

“Cerberus has always been a shameless handful,” Yue mutters, but his shoulders dip obligingly.

“I’m not arguing. So, hey, Cerberus says that I’m growing stronger, and that my channels are open enough for him to sense it as a stuffed animal. He told me to ask you about that.”

Yue nods against his shoulder. “The flow of magic is controlled from the source via modulating channels. When you gave me permission to use your magic, I redirected your channels to me. This is also why you are now stronger than you were before, and how your magic had gained an alignment; my constant draw from your source had widened the channels that controlled magic of the lunar aspect.” His body tenses, a little. “Opened channels are very difficult to close. Most of the magical community consider their permanent sealing as tantamount to amputation.”

“I presume opened channels will tend to widen.”

“With use, yes.”

“And frequent use will open the other, hm, narrower channels?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Touya’s hands tighten of their own accord; Yue leans into him as though he is dreaming. “Yue, I think I need advanced lessons on how to control my power.”

That wakes Yue up with unceremonious speed. He untangles himself from Touya’s arms, eyes searching. “Is there a problem? What happened?”

Touya resists the urge to smile. “No, no problems. I just... I don’t do much with my magic, do I? I might not be very strong, but I’m far from useless.”

“You do much with what you have. The Mistress has not had a finer protector.”

Touya shakes his head. “Sakura’s very important to me, but she’s not the only one who could use my protection, is she? I could be doing so much more somewhere else, especially when she can protect Tomoeda so well.” When she can protect herself and her own so much better than he ever can. But Touya has learned to pick his battles, and Sakura is growing up. He is learning to let go, to accept that he can only do so much for her, even as her only brother; now he has to learn to step back, for both their sakes.

Yue is staring at him with a surprisingly blank expression. “Are you discontent?”

“Not discontent, precisely. I was never very strong, and there was always Sakura and Father and Yukito and you to protect, you know? You were my most important people. It was enough for me, back then.” _Back then._ Wow, he sounds like an old man. But... his hands seem so very small now, for all their breadth and width. “I never had to ask myself what I’d do if I had more power than what I had. It hadn’t mattered, not when I’d barely managed to do anything with it at all. And now that I do have more power... I’m strong enough to be a target now, which means I’m strong enough to fight back. I have a responsibility, Yue.”

Yue is silent for a spell, eyes lowered. “I understand,” he says, as soft as the hand he’d laid over Touya’s heart. “I wish you well.”

It takes a moment too long for Touya to parse the wistfulness in Yue’s voice. “What’s wrong?”

“I— My place is with my Mistress.” Yue’s hand clenches into a fist on Touya’s shirt. “We haven’t talked about it, but the discrepancy between my Mistress’s magic and yours will translate to vastly different lifespans. I don’t— we—”

Touya has never seen such open emotion on Yue’s face before, much less such open misery. “Hey,” he says, alarmed. Yue’s tugging away from a grip he doesn’t remember laying on his fist, as the wings rise and close. “Hey, Yue.”

Yue stills, white feathers gleaming under the lights, but refuses to look anywhere near his person.

“Can I hold you?” Touya finally says, helplessly. “Just for a moment?”

A beat of silence. Then Yue leans into him again, and Touya wraps his arms around his shoulders, feels Yue cling to him. The great white wings dip and fold around them, soft pressure against Touya’s back.

“We’ve only just started talking about this,” Touya says at length, “let’s not jump to conclusions so soon.”

Yue’s reply is almost inaudible, and makes about as much sense. “He has a heart too. Tsukishiro Yukito.”

Touya frowns into Yue’s hair. “As do you.”

“He should not feel loss because of this.”

“Neither should you.”

“Love is a powerful force, Touya.”

“Yes,” Touya says patiently, “and he loves you, so of course he’s going to respect your choice.”

Yue makes a wordless noise that sounds a lot more disbelieving than it really should.

“Yukito’s not going to do something that will leave you hurt or lonely.” When Yue’s swift glance up is still laced with doubt, Touya sighs. Appealing to logic it is. “Yukito lives with you. While I can’t speak for him, I like to think that I know him well enough to tell how he thinks about things like this.

“And,” he adds, on instinct, “I think the mage sees that, too. That’s why he told you his true name. Your name.”

Yue stares. Then abrupt wings rise around him as he jerks back, and before Touya can finish drawing his startled breath Yukito is blinking owlishly in the fluorescent light.

“To-ya,” he murmurs, half a question. Then he lays a hand over his heart, mouth twisting. “Have you decided on the menu yet?” is all he says, though, and Touya could have kissed him.

“No. Something western, perhaps?”

“I think,” and here Yukito hesitates, looking a little lost, “before we prepare, I think you should hold us again, Touya. Just for a little bit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I’ll filter it for my other self if it’s too much. But— just for a little while. Maybe...” Yukito shakes his head. Touya’s heart nearly breaks at the expression on his face.

There is an academic but significant difference between the way Yue and Yukito sinks into his embrace. Yue sways, bending and relenting; Yukito just sinks. The simplicity in the press of Yukito’s forehead against his shoulder is something that can’t be translated into words. “The moon is very beautiful tonight,” Touya says, very soft, “every phase of it.”

Yukito sighs, arms tightening about Touya. “The phases of the moon are always beautiful,” he agrees. “Each and every phase.”

“He saw it coming. That I might want to leave Tomoeda to Sakura. Literally.”

“And I’m guessing that he didn’t see that I...” Yukito shudders. When they draw apart, Yukito’s expression has firmed into one Touya likes to describe as ‘about to out-stubborn an entire grove of old trees and their accompanying spirits’. “Things will be all right. We’ll make it work. All of us. But first, tonight’s menu.”

Touya exhales. “The bakery insisted that I take home some loaves. I’m thinking soup, but let’s see what we have in stock first, and then we can decide.” If they’ve survived a near miss with a multi-dimensional apocalypse, they can surely survive this.

“What kind of bread?”

“All kinds? Shizuru-san all but shoved a paper bag of them at me before I could even say goodnight. And I have cookies for dessert.”

“All right. Let’s see... Ah— To-ya, your bag is full of pastry crumbs!”

Touya groans into the refrigerator. Freakishly powerful sisters with bad taste in boyfriends and magical beings capable of both heartbreaking honesty and revenges as petty as playing with food in his bag? Honestly, is this what his life has become? “Dinner first. Then somebody—” and something, by which he means his stupid life “—is going to really regret messing with me.”

 

 

 

_-fin-_  


**Author's Note:**

> When Touya and Yukito are commenting on the beauty of the moon, they’re actually referring to an anecdote in which Natsume Soseki claimed that Japanese people would not say, “I love you,” but instead would choose, “The moon is very beautiful, isn’t it,” as a more literary and Japanese form of expressing their sentiment.


End file.
